Google Snippet Links For Squidoo

How To Get a Google “Jump To” Link For Your Squidoo Lens

Anyone seen the new snippet links in the Google search results? Some folks call them jump to links – I’ve also seen them called section links – but regardless, they are quite cool and make your Google listing stand out by offering the searcher another link to exactly what they are looking for on that one web page. While you can get snippet links to show in Google for any web page, they are really easy to get in Google with a Squidoo lens.

When I first noticed these links showing up in the Google search results, I called them “jump to” links because, well, because that’s what they SAY in the Google results – but when you hold your mouse over them, it seems Google is identifying them as “section links”. However, Leslie Rohde calls them snippet links so I’m gonna go with that (what? do you think I’m gonna argue with Leslie Rohde? Do I look stupid? Ok, don’t answer that).

In short, these snippet links make another link inside the description area of your web page listing in the Google search results. These snippet links link to a specific part on THAT same page/lens. Don’t confuse these with Site Links which link to OTHER pages on your site. These snippet links are deep links to content on the same web page.

We just announced a couple of new features on the Official Google Blog that enable users to get to the information they want faster. Both features provide additional links in the result block, which allow users to jump directly to parts of a larger page. This is useful when a user has a specific interest in mind that is almost entirely covered in a single section of a page. Now they can navigate directly to the relevant section instead of scrolling through the page looking for their information.

We generate these deep links completely algorithmically, based on page structure, so they could be displayed for any site (and of course money isn’t involved in any way, so you can’t pay to get these links). There are a few things you can do to increase the chances that they might appear on your pages. First, ensure that long, multi-topic pages on your site are well-structured and broken into distinct logical sections. Second, ensure that each section has an associated anchor with a descriptive name (i.e., not just “Section 2.1″), and that your page includes a “table of contents” which links to the individual anchors. The new in-snippet links only appear for relevant queries, so you won’t see it on the results all the time — only when we think that a link to a section would be highly useful for a particular query.

This is what my Squidoo lens description looked like in Google BEFORE the snippet link:

And this is how it looks now WITH my snippet link:

See that link the red arrow points to? That is a snippet link (or a ‘jump to‘ link…. or a ‘section link‘). That link in the Google results description links to a certain section on my lens.

And it’s been really good for business =)

Just a note before you go rushing off to see if your lens has snippet links in Google. When I am signed in to my Google account, these snippet links do NOT show for me so if you’re not seeing them, make sure you are signed OUT of Google. And just for the record, you should never be signed into Google when you are doing ranking checks or anything. That ol’ personalized search can really skew your results.

Good news! If you are familiar with making Squidoo lenses at all, you should be able to make these snippet links show for your lens. It’s not hard to do tho you might have to tinker with it to get these snippet links be as effective as they can for you.

1. Use the Table of Contents option in your intro module – NOT the individual Table of Contents module(see image below). Why? I believe it is because the links in the intro module table of contents are do-follow while the links in the Table of Contents module are NO-follow. (however, to note: I also tried making straight html links actually IN my intro module content that linked to individual modules on my lens and I couldn’t seem to get it to work – I’ll keep trying tho). Regardless, Google seems to love that “Contents at a Glance” area of a lens.

2. Get Google to re-cache your lens.

Yeah… that’s really all there is to it. Google is using the the titles of your modules that are included in the intro module Table of Contents (ie, “Contents at a Glance”) to show as snippet links in the search results.

But…. truth is…there is more to it in order for them to be EFFECTIVE (oh, and actually SHOW in Google).

Here’s what I did to make these snippet links more effective for me (oh, and yes, to get them to actually SHOW in the Google search results…lol).

I took a long look at my Squidoo lens traffic stats – specifically, the most popular terms my lens was found with in Google. Why? Because if I am getting good traffic for these terms already, why not up the stakes and get MORE traffic for it? People are already searching for those phrases… I am already ranking for those phrases…. so why not make my lens description in Google even more attractive and clickable to get MORE traffic for those phrases?

So, I pulled up my top organic search terms for my lens for as far back as Squidoo gives me stats for (or for as long as YOU have stats for) and came up with this list:

And then I made those exact phrases my Module titles on my lens:

And now that Google has re-cached my lens ( or recrawled….reindexed…respidered….same difference kinda sorta), I get cool little snippet links like this whenever someone searches for that specific keyword phrase:

So, do you think someone who was looking for worm farm plans and then saw that snippet link with exactly what they were looking for as the text of the link would be happy with the search results? Above all, do you think they would click it?

I do. The traffic to my lens is up…. especially for those specific phrases. Now granted, I’ve only been testing this for about a week and have tweaked and made all kinds of changes to see what works best, so this is not a guarantee your traffic will be up or that it will make an ounce of difference at all….. but, I am seeing improvements. I won’t be able to ever know for sure the impact these snippet links have on my lens traffic once this post goes live since people will be going to Google and searching my phrases and going to my lens and all that fun stuff (and yup, I’ll probably end up having even MORE competition in this market, too) – so naturally I’ve got other lenses out there quietly testing for me so I can get some sort of stats on this.

First off, these snippet links need to be keyword specific. If my module title was “Tip #1″ and then my module sub title was “worm farm plans” – it probably won’t work.

Make your module titles short and keyword specific – then “dress it up” with the module sub title. It seems shorter module titles work best, but I’ve managed to get some long snippet links to show if I forced it.

Naturally, I had to FORCE that one to show by searching Google for that exact phrase as it shows on the lens – and who the heck is gonna search for THAT? lol! But, my point is, if you have a longer keyword phrase, don’t be afraid to use it.

Now, I imagine some of you have already rushed off to Google to see your snippet links since you know you’ve been using the table of contents option in your intro modules…. and when you searched – Surprise! You ain’t got no snippets!

Why?

Remember – this is NEW with Google. If your lens has not been cached by Google recently, then your snippets will NOT show in Google (remember to be signed OUT of Google, too, when you check).

You need Google to recrawl your lens. To check when Google last cached your lens, search for your lens in Google, find your listing, and then click “cache” under your listing. Google will give you the date they were last there. If Google was just there (like in the last day or 2), and your snippets still aren’t showing, try tweaking your module titles a bit. Also, make sure you are searching Google for your exact keyword specific module title (don’t go searching for “My Story” or something vague like that – it won’t work. Besides, why would your module title be so vague anyway?)

If the snippets still won’t show, be patient. Google does what Google wants so that is the best explanation I can give.

A simple way to do this that seems to work more than it doesn’t work is to go to your lens, make your module title changes, republish, and then go straight to SquidUtils.com. Sign in, go to your advanced dashboard, and click “ping” next to the lens you just changed. You cannot ping if you have not edited your lens (you’ll get an error message)…and please, don’t go pinging more than once a day. If you have any problems or questions about SquidUtils.com, check with TheFluffanutta (the site owner) – he’s a really smart guy and tons of help.

Yes, I said “butt ugly”…..lol C’mon, what would YOU call this snippet link and description?

Isn’t that butt ugly? I told ya so!

If you have a module that is pulling data from another source (ie, an RSS module, a product feed module, an Amazon module, etc), you had BETTER be SURE you enter some relevant text into the module description area. In this case, I have an eBay module there and had left the module description area empty – therefor, it was a really, really butt ugly snippet link =)

Ok, that’s all there is to getting snippet links in Google search results for a Squidoo lens. Just please keep in mind, these snippet links do not happen overnight in Google…it might take some time.

Incidentally, a regular Table of Contents module does work for snippet links after all. Just search for “squidoo classes” on Google, and you’ll see the top result has a snippet link. That lens has a TOC module near the top, instead of a Contents at a Glance.

Isn’t that nice.

@ Fluff – Well, well, well…. how’s about that! I haven’t been able to get that to work for me. I’ve had way better success using the “contents at a glance”. Now I have to go make it work with the TOC module…lol!

Wow Jen !! I love how you are so up to date on all the new stuff Google is doing. thanks for the great tutorial. This is really interesting, and I think I’ve been turning off the content at a glance on my lenses. What do you think about doing this on specific product based lenses? I’m thinking it might work really well. Gonna run over there and test it out now!! Thanks again for all your super up to date info!

One more question ~ do you worry about messing up your SEO and ranking for your keywords if you change your module titles?

@Jackie – No, I don’t. Module titles are very important SEO Real Estate on a lens (they are an H2 tag). If you optimize them with terms people are actually using to find your lens, it can only be a good thing, right? In fact, a couple of my lenses I have focused on during this week+ of testing have actually improved in ranking.

Just a disclaimer here tho – this does NOT mean to go nuts and put the same exact keyword phrase as each module title either or to use phrases that make no sense at all. Find the balance between readers and Google as you do with any web page that you want to be successful on all fronts =)

It’s weird. I’m logged out of Google and I have looked at a couple of the examples shown here and I’m not seeing those links at ALL which is probably why I hadn’t noticed it. very strange. Mine are just showing up as bold, not links. Any ideas?

Personally, I like to limit my Contents at a Glance to exactly 6 modules, so that the More/Less link doesn’t appear at the bottom. I think it looks neater, and it takes up less space. On the other hand, this reduces the number of snippet links I will get.

Here’s another tip for you: a lens can have a TOC module at the bottom of the lens, and Google will still show the snippet links. I checked.

Very interesting tutorial – will save to my computer so that I can refer to it as often as I want and need. I didn’t know anything about this new Google feature but will take a closer eye! I’m off to check Thanks Jennifer, you rock! Dom.

Hi potpie, I read all and looked at all the sites posted on this. I still don’t understand how to change my squidoo lens. I looked at yours on the worm farm but sill don’t see what I must do to cause this to happen. I am feeling kind dumb right now.

Any suggestion on what I can do to get this down or learn the how to it? I have spent 2 hours trying but still don’t get it.

I haven’t changed my lenses for ages now as I’m scared to death to get them locked when I do so.

But you maybe re-awaken my Squidoo activities. let’s see.

I made one NEW lens yesterday under a pen name, so I maybe will use this idea here on that baby lens.

All does off course only make sense if you are one of the two lenses Google is showing in their index (psst – get PotPieGirls OneWeek Marketing to do so but don’t tell anybody that I gave you that tip, OK)

Is this based on what we used to call (some still do) silo-ing? Top down structure? I’m not a big Squidoo user (I have a few lenses), but I am a huge Wordpress user. This sounds a lot like WP category structure.

Hm. Perhaps Squidoo lenses aren’t as useless as I thought? I like Squidoo, but my lenses don’t index highly at all! I will frequent your blog more often, PotPieGirl. I’ve already learned a lot of great stuff Thanks!